When Katagiri, a bank employee who appears average in every way, arrives home from work on February 15, 1995, a six-foot tall frog sitting at his kitchen table announces to him that an earthquake is going to destroy Tokyo in three days’ time. Frog enlists Katagiri’s help to prevent the earthquake and save 150,000 people, proving to Katagiri, and the reader, that even the most average person can have a positive impact that reaches far beyond their own life.
Murakami’s celebrated story “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” (かえるくん、東京を救う) was written in response to the Great Hanshin earthquake that destroyed much of Kobe, Japan on January 17, 1995. The lines between fantasy and reality, dream and true experience, and the real and the imagined are blurred in this adventure; but whether or not it was “real” may not be the most important lesson.
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including The Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, The Franz Kafka Prize, and The Jerusalem Prize. Murakami is best known for blending magical realism, western culture in a Japanese context, and dreamlike surrealism.
